Kordas did not enter at the main doors to the Great Hall as most people did; he came through a smaller door up at the end of the Hall where the High Tables were. There he stood, just within the shadows of the doorway, and took a moment to look over the people who served him—and whom he, in his own turn, served.
Isla had gotten up this morning before he had; she was already in the middle seat of the main High Table, with Delia on the other side of her, both of them involved in a lively conversation that involved a lot of knife-waving. Hakkon was on the other side of Kordas’s empty chair, keeping a sharp eye on the pages and administering quiet corrections if they made mistakes.
It was Hakkon that Kordas’s gaze lingered on; Hakkon was the Seneschal, and according to Imperial custom, the highest-ranking person in Kordas’s household. Technically, he even outranked Isla. Kordas had depended on him for decades, and Hakkon simply didn’t have it in him to let Kordas down.
It would have been very easy, back in those days when Kordas was a hostage in the Imperial Court, for Hakkon to have eliminated Kordas by simple neglect. It was possible for bastards to succeed to a title; it just needed the Emperor’s approval, and that probably would not have been hard to get. Had Hakkon lusted for the Ducal coronet, the opportunity to snatch it had been right there.
But he had never been anything other than Kordas’s faithful protector and advisor. He had never even once given Kordas bad advice.
No one would ever have guessed that Hakkon was Kordas’s cousin; Hakkon was still tall and strong and muscled like a muleteer; he didn’t allow himself the “belly drift” of most courtiers. His hair and impressive beard were a startling white-blond, and he kept both in neat braids.
He never missed anything—perhaps as a result of being Kordas’s watchdog for so long; even though Kordas was still in the shadows of the doorway, his cousin spotted him, and signaled with his eyebrows and a tilt of his head toward the empty seat.
Kordas acknowledged him with a nod, and made his way through the bowing pages to join his family.
“Well?” Hakkon asked, as he took his seat.
“Well, the foaling was successful thanks to Delia, plus there was a second Sweetfoot born last night. I gave Delia the Gold foal because she earned it, so she will be starting her filly’s early training today, and yes, please put Restil in the pages, he’s old enough.” Having gotten that out of the way, he turned to his breakfast, listening in to Delia and Isla’s conversation. As he had expected, it was about Delia’s filly, who apparently had been named “Daystar.” Isla was giving her advice on the filly’s early training, and Delia was doing more listening than talking. Kordas buttered some bread with a broad knife imprinted with the white and blue winged horse of Valdemar, and turned back to Hakkon.
“I expect to hear from the Emperor that he wants his tribute quite soon,” he continued, “since the fact that I was doing my own foaling last night is bound to come to his ears as a hilarious anecdote.”
Hakkon snorted. “I don’t know how you put up with being thought a clown. I’d have broken some noses over it if I was in your shoes.” Then he laughed. “So it’s just as well I never wanted your shoes.”
“I put up with it by reminding myself constantly that it’s better to be thought a clown and be dismissed as harmless than to be a target for the Emperor’s suspicions. The more of a fool he thinks I am, the less likely he is to think of me at all.” He shrugged. “Anything you need to tell me about the pages, the squires, or the state of the Duchy?” All the servants ultimately reported to Hakkon, and were given their orders by him. The various lords of the other fourteen Valdemar manors also reported directly to him. He was in charge of the Exchequer, who managed the Treasury, the Housekeeper and Head Cook, and of course the pages and squires.
“Squire Brianta. I want her placed with a knight. She’s more than ready for the position, but you don’t have any lady-knights here,” Hakkon told him. “What do you want to do?”
That was a good question. Who am I certain enough of to trust a female squire to? Wait . . .
“You don’t have a squire at present,” he pointed out.
“I . . . don’t,” Hakkon admitted, after hesitating a moment. “That’s not a bad thought.”
“Is she smart enough to consider training for a Seneschal position?” he persisted. “Two birds, one stone, as it were.”
“We’ll see. I like where this is going, though,” Hakkon replied, and speared an apple with his knife. “Brianta is too good a squire to waste on a dolt, or worse, someone who would try to take advantage of the situation. And I do need a squire.”
“Then assign her to yourself. If her parents object, send them to me.”
Hakkon grinned. “They won’t. They prefer to think about Brianta as little as possible. Oh, they’ll be happy enough when she’s knighted, I am sure, since she’ll have a proper position in the world, but right now, she’s just the odd girl that isn’t much of a marriage prospect. Awkward for everyone. So am I correct in thinking you want Restil as Isla’s personal page?”
“Yes, sir, you are correct!” Kordas laughed, getting Isla’s side-glance. “It’s about time she had her own page.”
“It’s about time she had more than that, but your lady wife is the most difficult person I have ever met to get her to sit back and let other people do things for her,” Hakkon grumbled. “She’d be out there in the kitchen garden troweling herbs if I let her.”
The twinkle in Isla’s eyes told Kordas that she’d heard every word of that and was greatly amused by it, but she chose to turn back to her sister rather than address it.
Kordas and Hakkon continued to talk through the meal, though much of it was coded. It was fairly safe to talk openly here, but Kordas was not taking any chances that someone might decide to try Farseeing or a scrying spell on them as they ate. Unlikely—but possible. Besides, he and Hakkon had gotten used to phrasing their conversations with double-meanings, and in the Empire, that was a good habit to keep.
Although Kordas did not know Hakkon’s full story—that had died with Kordas’s mother, the Lady Lyantha, and Hakkon himself didn’t know most of it—he knew enough. Lyantha’s sister had run off with someone in a situation almost exactly like the popular song “Black Jack Davy.” Unfortunately their idyll had not lasted very long. She turned up with a toddler in tow about two years after Lyantha had married Lord Valdemar. She had come here, to the manor, knowing she was not welcome back home. Lord and Lady Valdemar would have taken her in, no questions asked, no shaming and no blaming, but she had merely begged them to take Hakkon into their household, and vanished again. Had she gone back to her lover, once she no longer had a child to worry about? No one knew; she had never been heard from again.